Five Years of Moon Jae-in Administration... Increase Rate of Simple Labor Jobs Surpasses Professional Jobs

Government, Not Private Sector, Creating Jobs
Factor Undermining Employment Insurance Fund Soundness

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Under the Moon Jae-in administration, the employment growth rate in simple occupations such as cleaning and security surpassed that of professional jobs in finance and manufacturing, which are so-called 'quality jobs.' This is the result of the government directly creating jobs rather than supporting private companies to generate employment. These occupations tend to have relatively lower job stability, increasing the likelihood of recipients of unemployment (job-seeking) benefits, which analysts say negatively impacts the soundness of the employment insurance fund.

On the 13th, Asia Economy analyzed the 'Employment Insurance Statistics by Occupation' data received from the Ministry of Employment and Labor through the office of Koo Kyung-ho, a member of the People Power Party. The number of employment insurance subscribers in the 'beauty, travel, accommodation, food service, security, and cleaning' sectors increased by 545,000, from 1,232,000 in May 2017, the first month of the Moon administration, to 1,777,000 in July this year. Subscribers in the 'education, legal, social welfare, police, firefighting, and military' sectors, which include public jobs, also rose by 269,000, from 663,000 to 932,000 during the same period. Consequently, the share of these occupations among all subscribers expanded from 10.9% to 13.4% for security and cleaning jobs, and from 5.9% to 7% for social welfare and related fields.

Conversely, the proportion of subscribers in 'management, office work, finance, and insurance'?professions dominated by specialists and high-income earners?declined by 4.6 percentage points, from 39.1% to 34.5%. The share of manufacturing-centered 'installation, maintenance, and production' occupations also shrank from 19.2% to 17.7%.

This is interpreted as a result of the current government's job policy focusing more on increasing the number of jobs rather than on 'quality.' The increase in simple labor jobs such as security and cleaning is expected to place a burden on the employment insurance fund's finances. This is due to the characteristic that workers in these sectors are more prone to repeated unemployment and job-seeking compared to professionals and manufacturing workers. Choi Young-gi, former director of the Korea Labor Institute, said, "Simple labor occupations experience more frequent labor mobility than other industries," adding, "They tend to have higher unemployment benefit payouts compared to other sectors." He further explained, "The growing proportion of insured workers in simple labor occupations could affect the financial soundness of the fund."

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